Andrew Tarantola

With North Korea's missiles at the ready—pointless though that may be—we may not be far from another mini-Cold War. With the potential end of civilization at the hands of a pudgy, late-20s Dennis Rodman fan looming, there's only one thing that can protect the American public: bunkers!

A US Department of Defense publication from 1961 depicts a family building a fallout shelter using sand-filled concrete blocks for roof shielding

Image: Hulton Archive/Getty Images

A double dome shelter design recommended by the US Civil Defense Office. Special assistant to the Secretary of Defense, Adam Yarmolinsky, demonstrates how the steel igloos are assembled at his Virginia home in April 1962.

Photo: Keystone/Getty Images

Geez, this this swanky illustrated backyard bomb shelter is nicer than my apartment.

Image: Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Geez, so is this backyard plywood shelter.

Image: Hulton Archive/Getty Images

For those without the means of building out a full-on bunker, the US DoD recommended a sand-covered lean-to shelter.

Image: Hulton Archive/Getty Images

A government official sits in a domestic shelter in York, UK, 1981. On his left, a hand-cranked intake air pump. On his right, enough food to last two weeks.

Photo: Central Press/Getty Images

This photo of Phyllis Millet and her daughters was taken in 1980 while the trio sat down to breakfast during a five-day trial of their new bunker.

Photo: Graham Turner/Keystone/Getty Images

Marcel Barbier and his wife Nicole inspect their Herdon Va home's bunker in 2001. Interest in shelters fell off after the Soviet Union collapsed but was rekindled after 9/11.

Photo: Jacqueline Roggenbrodt/AP

Apparently, even the fallout shelters were made of polyester in the 1970s.

Photo: Haditechnika 1973, Zrínyi Katonai Kiadó, Budapest, 1972

Beverly Wysocki and Marie Graskamp check out a shelter with Super Mario Bros-style entrances in 1958.

Photo: AP

This massive steel tube, known as the Goblin (reassuring!), was designed by Takaaki Hashida Kashiwa, Japan in 1996. The cylinder measures 13.5-meter long and 3.6-meter in diameter. It is reportedly capable of supporting 15 people for 30 days.

Photo: Katsumi Kasahara/AP

A free-standing, double-hulled steel shelter located under a Ft. Wayne, Indiana front yard.